Exit Music
by Love Lost Contest
Summary: 10 years ago, Bella made a choice. Or did she? Now, life is offering her a second chance. Written for the Love Lost Contest.


**Title: Exit Music**

**Characters: Edward, Bella, Jake**

**Rating: M**

**Word Count: ****4,925**

**Disclaimer: Stephenie**** Meyer owns all things Twilight; the heartbreak is all mine.**

**Summary: 10 years ago, Bella made a choice. Or did she? Now, life is offering her a second chance. Written for the Love Lost Contest.**

**To see all entries in the "Love Lost" Contest, please visit the profile: .net/u/2458839/Love_Lost_Contest**

**A/N: If you want a soundtrack: http : / www . youtube . com/watch?v=F_4fiMIxO2E&a=GxdCwVVULXem4Fwvh0EJikVHbmXLE**

I have been staring at my computer screen for 10 minutes, oblivious to the fact that I am at work and shouldn't really be checking Facebook; I'm sure everyone in this open-plan office can see me.

I am frozen and don't know what to think, what to do.

I re-read the message: "Hey, Isabella. I will be in town next week for a couple of days for a conference. Meet me for lunch, I long to see your face and hear your voice. It's been too long. Edward"

Short, nonchalant, and seemingly innocuous. It's anything but.

It's been two years since I last heard from Edward, and I was starting to think that maybe our yearly email frissons were over.

In the decade we have been apart, a pattern has emerged: he contacts me once a year, sending me a short, sweet email full of innuendos and longing…"_I dreamt of you last night and woke up feeling displaced and lonely_"; I always bite, answering back, trying to match his tone, trying to get him to show his game, and he responds, initially…"_What was I doing in your dream_?"…"_You were walking on sand dunes, barefoot_"..._"Were you with me?"_; and then, after one or two rounds of this, he stops writing back. Always. He always makes sure that I'm the last to write, the one to expose myself the most. I hate him for it, and yet he always leaves me yearning for more.

I won't hear from him for many months, a year. And then we'll start again. Once, he sent me a DVD of a movie we never watched together. I hid it in a drawer but could never bring myself to watch it.

We've never talked about the big stuff-weddings, the births of our kids-and yet we know about the essentials of each other's lives from our common acquaintances.

We move in a haze of things unsaid.

But now the game has changed. He reached out through Facebook about a month ago, and I looked through his page; there were a few pictures of a gorgeous boy, maybe seven years old, with the same wild red hair, the same sparkling eyes. No pictures of his wife. He saw my pictures, too, I'm sure-snapshots of domesticity, of birthdays, holidays, celebrations.

So now we have more pieces of the puzzle that our lives have been. Our lives apart. And this…this _notion_ of what a life together could have been. A notion he has never wanted to let rest, a notion that has eaten at me, in some remote, secret, tightly guarded recess of my heart, for 10 years.

I love my life. I love my husband. I love what _has_ been. And yet I cannot let go of what _could_ have been, with him. What happened 10 years ago never made sense to me, and I want some answers. I need some answers. I need to know whether that notion is just a dream, and if not, whether it could be a reality.

So I answer back, quickly, before I can change my mind: "Lunch sounds good. My voice is probably unchanged, my face I can't guarantee. Let me know when and where. Bella"

And immediately I feel a sense of overwhelming unease wash over me. Is this cheating? Should I tell Jake? Is this going to hurt me? Perhaps I should have waited before accepting, talked to someone, Alice maybe. Perhaps I should have played harder to get. Perhaps I should have just said no. Perhaps I can still say no.

My phone is ringing, and I am working myself into a state of panic. I send the call to voicemail and head for the bathroom, avoiding Bree's curious stare and Rosalie's frown of displeasure at my lack of concentration.

I lock myself in the stall and lean back against the door, trying to get my thoughts in order, trying to figure out what the hell is going on in my head.

It was a long time ago, I tell myself. It was a different life. I remind myself that it didn't happen, probably for a reason. I try to be calm, rational, confident.

But all that comes to me is an image of a 25-year-old Edward: his exotic, otherworldly appeal; his wild auburn hair; his green eyes, always scanning, always thinking, always one step ahead of the game; his slightly scruffy clothes, apparently thrown on almost as an afterthought; his walk, the way he leaned forward, seemingly always ready to crouch and run. The way he never seemed to arrive, but simply to be there. Never in the spotlight, but always there.

I remember late-night conversations in crowded, smoky bars, and it makes me feel old that I remember smoke, that I can only remember a time when evenings out were still surrounded by a cloud of cigarettes. I remember looking at him surreptitiously while Emmett held court and finding his eyes fixed on me, a barely-there smile illuminating his brooding features. I remember us manoeuvring so that we were the last to leave, casually hanging back just a minute more than necessary so that we could walk together, just out of earshot from the rest of the crowd. I remember CDs changing hands in the hallway of our dorm, and I feel another pang of longing for those forgotten times, those pre-iPod days when music exchanges required physical contact and not just an email. Then there were all those late-night phone calls, all that talking about movies, and books, and music, and travel, the avalanche of words describing our dreams, our fears, our passions. Always talking about ourselves, but never daring to say the things we really wanted to say.

My memory is hazy on timelines, but I seem to remember that it took forever to move from the phone calls and group outings to actually being together, alone. I don't remember our times together as dates, because I didn't think of them as dates then; perhaps now I would. We went to the movies a few times; we had drinks. We went to strange parties where we didn't know anyone, so we huddled together in corners, feeling apart from everyone else, and intensely together. One night we ended up in my room, sitting too close to each other on my bed, our fingers brushing, our bodies just inches apart. I remember the new and strange and giddy feeling of wanting, wanting, wanting…my lips reaching for his but brushing against his stubble, then finding his soft, perfect mouth…his somewhat hesitant response, and then kissing for what felt like hours, kissing with hunger and passion, our hands scanning first our faces, then our bodies through our clothes, lust turning me into molten wax in his hands…his scent, lust and cigarettes; his voice, velvet and gravel and just a hint of a musical, exotic accent. This, I remember.

I open my eyes, willing my depressing surroundings to snap me out of this train of thought, but it doesn't work: even in this sterile bathroom stall I still can physically feel the pain of him pulling away from our kiss, stroking my face, and getting up to leave. He left me there that night without a word, and I think I was too shocked to even cry; the humiliation was as new as the desire that had been building up inside of me for months.

He was careful never to be alone with me after that, but if anything, our interactions became more intense: there were books he left in front of my door, songs he played on the telephone, poems he emailed to me. And always his words, his glittery words, his perfect words like diamonds-beautiful and precious and hard and making me burn, burn, burn with need and want. He tended that fire from a just-out-of-reach distance, and I was like a moth flying too close to the flames, not knowing what was happening to me or how to change it.

If I had listened to Johnny Cash then, I'd have played "Ring of Fire" over and over and over again.

And then Jake happened. Jake walked into my life without warning, full of here and now, of purpose, of uncomplicated desire. He found me and told me that he wanted me, only me. He found me already burning, and he fanned my flames, willed me into letting that fire roar. For him. With him. Wild, but with a promise that our fire would never consume me.

Jake scared me, at first. I was used to playing games, but he didn't play any. I was used to trying to impress, to feeling always one step behind, just one shade short of worthy, but Jake, he made it plain that he liked me, leaving me with nothing to do, nothing to doubt. I was used to being spun in a web of charm and lust, but Jake was so confident, so limpid, so sure of himself, and he laid himself out for me to see and to take. I didn't know what to do with someone like Jake, and that frightened me. How do I hold onto something so freely given, someone right there in front of me?

Perhaps Edward sensed this. Perhaps something else happened in his mind, or in his life, that life he so carefully shielded from me. I don't know what changed in him, but I could feel the changes in me, and maybe he could, too. The pull of Jake was strong, and yet I tried to resist it. I was holding out for Edward, holding out for what seemed to be so much more valuable because it was just out of reach.

I tortured myself in this fog of lust and love and confusion and kept seeing both of them, kept trying to push Edward toward a break in our impasse, until that night when he stood me up at the movie theater. He claimed, many years later, that he had only been a few minutes late. I guess we'll never know what would have happened had I waited, and it's only a bitter irony now that we didn't have mobile phones back then.

That night, the fury and humiliation sent me straight to Jake. I rang his doorbell, and he let me in without questions or challenges. There was no need to talk about music and poetry: His kisses were real, his body was real, our lust was real and present, and we made love that night, and every night that followed. It was so easy and so right to just fall into his uncomplicated love, like diving into crystalline waters.

It didn't feel like a choice at the time, and if I'm being honest, it still doesn't feel like I chose. Not really. I never felt that I _had_ a choice.

I didn't tell Edward, but someone else must have; he simply receded back into the shadows from where he'd come from, and even though I didn't want it to, his abrupt and speechless absence hurt.

And that _hurt.._.That hurt is what has kept the flame alive. That hurt is what he's been stoking all these years, what has allowed him to behave this way-never quite letting me go, but never claiming me. He's always alluding at my departure, my betrayal, without ever saying it out clearly. Without ever alluding to the fact that we had nothing that I could betray, that he'd wanted nothing from me. _Nothing_.

I step out of the stall and splash cold water on my face. I don't know if it's a good idea, but I have to meet him.

I am not going to tell anyone.

Edward writes back the next day, another short, neutral email, and we agree to meet on Monday in a restaurant near the university.

The next week is a bitch. I am a bitch. I treat everyone like shit, because I feel like shit.

Jake gets the worst of it. I can't stand to be near him, finding fault with everything he does, getting irritated at all the things he isn't. Finally, I manage to provoke him badly enough that we fight, hard and viciously, and he says things that hurt me. I deserve it, and being told nasty things about myself makes me feel better, in a sick, perverted kind of way. We have sex afterwards, angry, ugly sex that only creates more tension rather than easing it.

We spend the weekend skirting around each other, using the children to give structure and rhythm to our days, talking about inconsequential things. We have Alice and Jasper over for lunch on Sunday; I am jittery and nervous, and I drink too much and talk too loudly and make a big production of cleaning up afterwards. When Jake reaches over and hugs me that night I melt into his embrace, grateful that he always knows when I feel bad, thankful that he is so forgiving, and guilty that I am taking his comfort even though I should be apologising 'til I run out of words.

And then I wake up on Monday morning and feel calm and focused and ready for it; I have always been like this, panicking forever in anticipation of any big event, then suddenly finding calm when the moment hits. I dress with purpose, taking care to wear matching underwear, picking a black wrap dress that's good for work but shows a bit of cleavage. I try not to dwell on the fact I am at least 20 pounds heavier than I was 10 years ago; I wear that amber necklace that makes my skin glow and take care to pack all of my makeup in my handbag. I tell Jake that I'll be in meetings all afternoon, can he be home in time to relieve the babysitter? Then I kiss him goodbye and head to work, thinking that when I come home tonight I will be a different person.

I have spent the whole week telling myself that I just want some closure and that I'm only meeting Edward to talk things through and put an end to his remote and sporadic flirtation, but as I walk to work I realise, with startling clarity, that I have been kidding myself. I am ready for much, much more. I want to see if the flame is still there, and if it is, I'm ready to let it consume me. I can't exclude the possibility that I might be sleeping with another man today. Some dark, amoral part of me hopes that this is exactly what will happen: While I want to believe that my principles and my love for my husband will stop me, I am not convinced that they will, or that I want them to.

When I switch on my computer at work the first thing I find is an email from Edward:_ "The next few hours waiting to see you are going to be harder than the last 10 years I've spent chasing a ghost. I miss you. Edward"_

My heart leaps in my chest, and I feel a sudden tightening between my legs. I am tempted to respond, but I can't find my words; then Rosalie is all over me, and the morning flies by in a whirlwind of minor emergencies and tense meetings. I leave just before one, telling people that I have a doctor's appointment. I go to a bathroom on another floor to put on my makeup and brush my teeth.

I look at myself in the mirror, and I like what I see.

I am a few minutes late for our lunch, and I see him immediately, sitting in a corner table, immersed in the wine menu. My heart stops beating for a second, and it feels simultaneously like I am dreaming and like everything is hyper-real. I take a minute to just look at him, unobserved, and he is still the same from this distance: wild red hair; a hint of stubble; shoulders hunched forward; long, elegant fingers fidgeting incessantly; clothes that look like he's rolled around in them.

And then he sees me. His eyes meet mine, and he breaks into a smile. The fluttering between my legs is back; it's still Edward, and now I'm scared, and my legs won't move.

He stands up and walks toward me, arms extended. He pulls me into a tight hug-the kind of hug you'd give a long-lost friend-and doesn't let me go, and his smell, God, his smell is overwhelming me, and I can't think straight. Then he whispers in my ear, "I thought you wouldn't come," and leads me to my seat, pulling out my chair, and we both laugh then, both of us breathing these embarrassed, awkward giggles as we sit down. I can see now that he's not quite the same: there are tiny lines around his eyes, a few strands of grey in his hair, a different set to his lips. And yet it's still him, and I am flooded with regret and longing and insecurity. I feel 21 all over again, dizzy and intense and lost.

Over a bottle of Spanish red and a plate of shared tapas we make small talk, cautiously touching on personal issues. We talk about our children-their ages, their names, the funny things they say and do-while carefully avoiding all mention of our spouses. I tell him about my work, how tiring and stressful it is, how different it is from what I dreamed of 10 years ago. He tells me about travelling all the time, doing research in Africa, moving from place to place. We talk about how our politics have softened, how some of our non-negotiables have been negotiated and compromised, and yet we share anger and outrage about recent wars and distant genocides.

"I've been in town many times over the last 10 years," he tells me, and the atmosphere of our conversation changes.

"But you never tried to see me," I answer.

"No."

"Why not? And why now?"

"It just… just didn't seem right. I didn't know where we stood," he says, and his eyes shift away from mine.

"And what has changed, Edward? Do you know where we stand now?" I am beyond frustrated, and I need answers. He stays silent.

"Edward, all these years…your emails and cards…why? Every time you've written to me you…I don't know what happened. I never understood what you were trying to tell me. Every time, I was confused for weeks afterwards. I need to know…why now?" My voice is insistent, and low, and I can feel the heat coming to my face. I can't look away from him.

He chuckles humourlessly and lifts his eyes again to meet mine.

"You really want to know?" he asks.

"Yes. I _need_ to know, Edward."

"I saw your pictures on Facebook. I saw you as you are now; I saw you in those pictures with your kids, smiling; I caught glimpses into your life. I saw how beautiful you have become." He pauses for a minute, and his fingers extend to brush my hand. "You were always beautiful, Isabella, but now, now you are magnificent. Motherhood becomes you."

And against my will, I blush, stunned by the intensity of this declaration.

Edward goes on.

"And I started to think about our time together, all those years ago. How you slipped away from me. I never forgot you, Isabella. Never. I put you aside to live my life, to love those nearest me, but…and those emails…once in a while, when things got to be too much, I would allow myself to remember you, and those memories always felt like a safe refuge, somewhere pure and clean and uncorrupted. I wanted to recapture the feel of you, your words; your adoring, expectant eyes…those emails, those were my way of doing that."

He is holding my hand now, clutching it tightly, and inside of me a storm is raging. His words hurt me and heal me at the same time, and I am losing focus, his velvety voice hypnotising me.

"But Edward…those memories…I don't know what happened between us all those years ago. I never understood what happened."

He laughs a short, bitter laugh.

"What happened? You left me for him, remember? You ran away!"

And I am suddenly furious at this, the intensity of this conversation finally erupting into an almost violent retort: "You stood me up! You let me go! You didn't fight for me…you didn't fight, Edward." A traitor tear slips down my cheek, and I angrily wipe it away. "Do you have any idea how much that hurt? I loved you, but I got exhausted trying to understand you. You dazzled me, you played me…you exhausted me. And you pushed me away, and I never knew whether you wanted me or not, and I didn't understand why you didn't want me. I didn't run away from you, Edward; I just stopped running after you."

He looks dejected, but he's still holding my hand.

We are silent for a while, and I can sense more tears welling up in my eyes.

"I wanted you. Ah, Bella, I wanted you so much. But you were so…so innocent, and pure, and intense, and I got scared, and I wanted to be this great big man who travelled the world, unattached, and had a woman in every city…so I kept you away, but then it was so hard to keep you away, so I tried to pull you in just enough. I wanted to be selfless, but really, I was so selfish…" his voice is bitter, hard. "And then when he showed up…I saw you. You were happy. You smiled all the time. You had lovebites on your neck and messed-up hair, and I thought the best thing I could do for you was to let you go to someone who wouldn't be scared of the intensity, someone who could make you happy and wouldn't one day hurt you, someone who wouldn't leave you. And so I didn't fight. But I am ready to fight now."

I quickly jerk my hand back, frightened by the sudden determination in his words.

"What…what do you mean?"

"I look at you now, and you are this beautiful, sexy, confident woman; I think of all the time I've wasted, and I want you. I want you, Isabella. I want to make love to you like I should have 10 years ago. I want to take you with me wherever I go. I want to take you to listen to blues guitarists in Mali and out to dance 'til dawn in Kampala and camping on deserted islands in Mozambique. I want to have children with you. We could have had all of that, together, but I was too stupid to see…but we can still have it, it's not too late. All of the things he's given you, I can give you, those and more. So much more. I know this now."

He grabs my hand again and kisses my fingertips, sending shivers all down my spine. My body, clearly, knows what it wants.

"_Si tu m'aimais, et si je t'aimais, comme je t'aimerais!"_

I am paralysed. I look at Edward, and I am lost, trying to absorb what he's saying, trying to find the words to match his, trying to stop my heart from beating out of my chest.

And then the realisation hits me. I am dazzled. He's seducing me like he used to, dangling all of his beautiful, shiny words in front of my eyes, spinning a web of dreams that obscures and confuses reality.

A life with Edward would have been a life spent in the shadows of his need to shine, a life of me always falling short of his dreams, a life of dazzling heights followed by terrifying crashes into the lows. The life he's offering me now won't be any different.

And I might not have chosen 10 years ago, but I can make my choice now.

We are silent for a long time, until I finally find the words and the strength to say them out loud.

"Edward. What you see….who I am today-the sexy, confident woman I am now-all of this is because of Jake. He has loved me and made love to me and been my rock this whole time. Thanks to him, I am beautiful, and lovely, and strong and fierce. He's never said the things you say, and he would never, not in a million years, be as smart and fascinating and handsome as you are. But he is my man, and I am this woman thanks to my man, Edward."

I swallow, the tears flowing freely down my face, my heart pounding furiously.

"And I loved you, Edward Cullen, God knows how much I loved you. And I might never have started things with Jake if it hadn't been for you, but I did. And I might never have let myself fall so fast and so deep with him if he hadn't been your polar opposite, but I did, and you know what? It doesn't matter why, or how everything happened. What matters is that it did."

He interrupts me, his words cutting, his eyes begging.

"So that's it then? You stick with what you've got? You're not willing to even question or re-examine your life? What happened to your passion, your fire? I know you still feel this thing between us."

"Yes, o.k. yes, I feel it. I feel it, and it drives me insane that I do because…well, because we had our chance, Edward. It was 10 years ago. And I am still angry with you for not fighting, and I am still angry with myself for not making you fight but…it's gone, Edward. Whatever it was, it's gone. And it ends here. No more emails. No more chasing dreams. I loved you once, and I would have walked through hell for a chance to be with you, but that love burnt itself out. It's out, Edward. It's over."

There are more words spoken. Edward is disappointed but not distraught. I hate knowing that I've hurt him, and I hate knowing that this is it, I am losing him for good. But I feel free, and I know that I'm setting him free. I am sure this is the right thing to do.

We walk together for a while after lunch, in the streets filled with students and traffic. The streets where 10 years ago we walked together. When the time comes to separate, Edward takes my hand, and he asks if he can kiss me. And I say yes. We kiss, at first with just our lips gently brushing, then parting, and then with our tongues meeting. We allow ourselves to just sink into it, and there are memories, and regrets, and farewells in this kiss.

"Goodbye, Edward. Thank you for all that you've given me. I will treasure these memories forever," I say, as our foreheads rest against each other, as we hold hands for one last time.

"Goodbye, beautiful Isabella. Good luck," he answers, bringing my hand to his heart.

I get home just as Jake has finished putting the kids to bed. When he sees me, he kisses me distractedly on the lips and mumbles something about going for a run. I nod wordlessly and head for the bathroom.

I soak in a hot bath for a long time, the emotions of the day washing over me in waves. And as I expected this morning, I feel like a different woman. But it's not the difference I expected: I know that I've lost something, but I have found a freedom that I didn't know was possible. There is a relief in this that almost feels like happiness.

I come out of the bath, wrap myself in a towel and head into our bedroom just as Jake comes home. He is panting; his hair is wet from the rain that has started falling, and his t-shirt is damp from the drizzle and the sweat. He looks at me and grins, his crooked smile that I love so much, and he pulls me towards him.

"Jake," I protest, without conviction, "you're so smelly."

He pulls me closer, so that my face is in his chest.

"C'mon, you know you love it," he says, as he nuzzles his nose in my damp hair. "Mmm hmm, you, you on the other hand…you smell all good and clean."

I pull away from his arms, but he's caught on a corner of my towel, and he pulls it 'til it's on the floor. Suddenly I'm standing in front of him completely naked, and he laughs, and he looks so young, so carefree.

"What?" I walk back toward him, pushing him back on the bed, trying to look as mischievous as I can. "Never seen a naked lady before, darling?"

He pulls me down onto the bed until I'm lying on top of him. He takes my face between his hands and just looks at me, intently, concentrated, and I think he's going to say something, but then he just kisses me softly and whispers, "I should go shower."

But he doesn't. I lay my head in the crook of his shoulder, inhaling his familiar, beloved scent, letting my body sink effortlessly into his, watching my legs intertwine with his. And I'm home.

**A/N: **_**"Si tu m'aimais, et si je t'aimais, comme je t'aimerais**_**!": ****If you loved me, and if I loved you, how I would love you!****, from ****Toi et moi, Epigraphe**** by Paul Geraldy**


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